“Nice of you to fucking show up, Lowe,” Staffen barked, ducking as a wave of boiling mana flew towards her head.

  Although her figure was grandmotherly, there was nothing remotely sweet about her expression as she glared at him. “Sorry if a little bank robbery got in the middle of your bloody social life!” She grabbed Lowe roughly by the collar and slammed his back against the wall as another attack whistled past his ear. The stone bit into his shoulder blades, and his shirt tore a little more. Another one for Mylaf to fix tonight.

  “Well, you know. I just assumed, since you keep telling me what a complete waste of space I am, one of your other ads or lasses would be able to handle something like a little bank job.”

  Eight or nine pairs of eyes glared back at him from behind improvised barriers of conjured stone and mana constructs. Central among them, Commander Pernille Staffen looked like she was on the verge of exploding herself.

  “Don’t quote me back to me, wanker! Have a shufty and tell me what you can see!”

  Lowe poked his head out from cover and looked at the Vault across the street. It was a colossal banking house that had stood in the heart of Soar for longer than anyone alive could remember. All blackened stone, iron-barred windows and heavy, arched doorways guarded by intricate wards of protection.

  Its existence was a pretty visceral reminder that mana and money were old, old friends.

  Above, the building’s upper levels were demonstrated by stone balconies jutting out over the street like the jaws of some great beast waiting to swallow the world whole. At this precise moment, however, that jaw was spitting out a pretty continuous boiling wave of mana that shrieked as it tore through the air, warping space around it before smashing into the mana wall Staffen’s people had erected in the street.

  Even as Lowe looked, a wave of energy came his way, and he darted back in, the protections the Security Service had thrown up shuddering under the impact as it absorbed the hit.

  Taking a chance, he popped back out again, this time trying to see into one of the shattered windows. Inside, a figure moved—shadows distorted by the lingering aftereffects of whatever Skills had been slung about. He could properly examine that glance with Grid View later if he needed to.

  “I could be wrong, but it seems like someone in the bank would like the Security Services to go away,” Lowe said.

  “Stop being such a motherfucking pain in my arse!” Staffen hissed. “Whoever’s up there is throwing a shitstorm our way, and not everyone I can call on is a fucking cockroach. I need you to take point on going in there and, I don’t know, earn some of your fucking salary.”

  Adjusting his torn shirt, Lowe pulled up Grid View, eyes tracing the broken windows and the distorted shadow that danced behind them. The Vault’s interior was, oddly, pitch black. There was no line of sight and no clean entry points.

  Which was not exactly ideal.

  He looked again at a building whose exterior was very much designed to deter thieves, and was positively bristling with defensive glyphs and enchantments. This sort of old mana security measure was meant to keep people out, what on earth had happened for someone to fucking take the whole place captive.

  A heavy, wrought-iron door stood at the base, bolted tight, the original mechanism replaced with more contemporary wards. A crack ran up the stone beside it, a reminder of the last time someone had tried to brute-force their way in. He’d only been on the force for a few years when that little shitstorm went down. Was that the last time someone had tried to rob this place? He thought so.

  But it hadn’t worked back then. And Lowe didn’t think that’s what had happened this time, either.

  “Whoever’s in there has taken all the staff hostages,” Staffen said. “As well as a bunch of rich fuckers playing a game of ‘look at how much money I have.’ They’re not interested in negotiating. They’re just throwing all sorts of deadly shit at us whenever we try to move in.”

  “Who let us know it was going down?” Lowe asked.

  Staffen looked at him and then at one of the other officers. “Well? Answer the man.”

  There was a pause and then an officer who looked young enough to be Lowe’s daughter spoke up. “We actually don’t know.”

  “We don’t fucking know?!” Staffen’s voice was loud enough to drown out the noise of molten death pouring out of the Vault’s windows. “How the fuck are we all here then, Lund?”

  The female officer - Lund, Staffen had called her - shrugged. “A message came in over the Public Sending Stone. It said: The Vault is breached. The ledger is open. Old debts stir. Morning comes, and the rider is already on the road. We sent someone to have a look and, well, someone started firing.”

  Lowe went still. He’d heard words like that before—just over a year ago, carved into the wall of a child’s empty bedroom:

  The tally is made. The coin is blood. Dawn breaks, and the road is taken.

  Another wave of mana screamed out of the upper windows, sizzling through the air. The protective wall behind them shuddered again, its glowing surface spider-webbing with cracks before slowly repairing itself.

  “Do you have anyone on suppression?” Lowe asked.

  “Couple of lads on the roof,” Staffen replied. “They’re stopping it so that we’re able to get this close without getting our heads blown off. The rest are spread out along the street, keeping bystanders from getting curious and, you know, getting blown to fucking pieces.”

  Lowe scanned the area, picking out a couple of reasonably familiar faces in strategic positions. He didn’t know any names, but they all looked like they were making a competent enough effort at holding a perimeter. And they were all so fucking young.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Then, for a moment, his eyes blurred and it was Arman across the street, hidden behind an abandoned vendor’s cart, his massive frame barely concealed by the flimsy wood. Faulks was stationed at the alley entrance, wiry figure perfectly still, a loaded crossbow aimed at the shattered windows, eyes never leaving the shadows within. And there was Rook, shaking his head sadly at the whole thing.

  Then he blinked and his vision cleared.

  “Anyone been hurt?” Lowe asked.

  “Just a lot of fucking pride,” Staffen growled. “We’re looking like a bunch of morons here., stood around with our thumbs up our arses. I’m going to rip that twat’s arms off and fuck him to death with the wet end once I get my hands on him.”

  “Okay,” Lowe said. “Understood. So give me the rundown of the place.”

  Staffen’s eyes remained fixed on the building. “Two entrances—main door and a service alley around the back. Both sealed. I’ve tried to bruteforce my way in the backalley myself - I better not see you fucking smiling at that, Lowe! - but no dice.”

  Lowe carefully ensured his grin stayed smothered. If Staffen didn’t have the power to blow the doors off the service alley, there was absolutely no one in Soar - short of a God - who could.

  “There’s no way in without setting off a dozen different alarms,” his boss continued, “and whoever’s inside apparently knows how to use the Vault’s defenses. They’ve somehow rigged up a mana feedback loop to that cannon, meaning its spitting out offensive Skills every time we’ve tried to crack the wards. Every single attempt at breaking the barrier had been met with a pretty brutal counterattack.”

  “And no demands at all?”

  Staffen’s jaw clenched. “None. No messages. No communication. Just floods of mana flying out the second anyone gets within twenty feet.”

  Lowe took a moment, his mind in Grid View tracing the glyphs etched into the stone walls. Some of those sigils were old. Older than him, probably older than the rest of Staffen’s entire team combined.

  A small, broken body in an abandoned warehouse.

  “Okay,” Lowe said. “Here’s the play. I’m going in.”

  Staffen frowned at him. “Yes. I know. That’s the whole reason why I wanted you here, Lowe. If they’ve got a mana feedback loop up, that means they’re running low on power. Sure, it’ll still probably kill you, but you’re the only guy I have on staff who is likely to bounce back from a direct hit from that. Too fucking right you’re going in.” There was a pause. “Sorry, were you making that offer in the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice? Piss on your chips, did I?”

  “I love how valued and appreciated I am as a member of this team.”

  “Oh, and just to be clear at the outset, if this wanker drops you and it sticks, I’m absolutely putting it in the report that you volunteered.”

  “Wouldn’t expect anything else from you, boss.”

  Lowe summoned back his glance of the Vault via Grid View, and really examined the crack in the stone beside the door. Then he looked up, about the flickers of movement from one of the shattered windows.

  “Okay. I’m ready. Keep the others in position. If this goes sideways, send in the cavalry.”

  “And what exactly are they supposed to do if you’ve been turned into a red smear on the floor?”

  “Be really disappointed in me, I suppose, boss,” Lowe said, walking toward the Vault.

  Staffen opened her mouth to retort, but the words died as a blast of mana howled from one of the upper windows, roaring toward Lowe like a carriage made of liquid fire.

  Lowe didn’t stop walking. He did his best not to even look up.

  The bolt screamed past his head, close enough that he felt his hair lift from the wind of its passing. It smashed into the manawall behind him, nearly obliterating it and making Staffen swear a blue streak.

  Lowe just kept walking.

  Another blast hurtled toward him, this one an electric blue arc that crackled with enough voltage to fry his bones to ash. It slammed into the cobblestones at his feet, sending shards of stone spraying in all directions. His left ankle buckled as the ground shifted beneath him, a red-hot piece of cobblestone slamming into his shin. He staggered, pain flaring bright and hot up his leg, but then it was gone as Roll with the Punches activated.

  “That’s impossible,” one of the rookies from behind the manawall said. “He’s not even trying to deflect them. How is he still alive?”

  Just don’t know any different, mate, Lowe thought, feeling the ground shudder beneath his feet as another blast impacted just behind him. He felt the pressure wave push against his back like a hand shoving him forward.

  The rubble from the next explosion shot outward, turning more cobblestones into shrapnel. Several shards smashed into his side, into his shoulder, his neck—each impact registered for a heartbeat before fading away, the pain evaporating as Roll with the Punches asserted itself.

  Lowe just kept walking, eyes fixed on the iron-bound door ahead.

  A further bolt of mana seared the air, striking the ground directly in front of Lowe and disintegrating the street where he had been about to step. He paused, his foot hovering over the edge of the pit, the ground crumbling away beneath him. Lowe took a step to the left, his balance shifting effortlessly.

  “Motherfucking cockroach,” Staffen whispered under her breath.

  Lowe was only a few steps from the Vault now, and he could feel the defensive enchantments woven into the stone resisting him. These were layered wards meant to obliterate anyone stupid enough to approach when the place was in lockdown.

  Well, that was the plan, anyway.

  At the last moment, another blast of mana began to pulse within the upper window. As it shot out, he stepped to the left, into the crack that ran through the stone wall. The crack was blackened, scorched with old mana burns, a gaping wound in the fabric of the Vault’s defenses.

  The mana blast faltered as it approached, then fizzled out, the charged energy dissipating into thin air.

  Lowe exhaled slowly. A dead zone. Just as he’d hoped. It was nice to be right sometimes.

  He ran his fingers along the edge of the crack, feeling the absence of power, the hollow cold that only a dead zone could produce. There was no resistance, no buzz of defensive energy. This close he hoped the enchantments couldn’t touch him. They couldn’t even see him.

  A high-pitched whine signaled another spell being charged, and Lowe’s eyes flicked up to the window above. The attacker clearly hadn’t figured out why he hadn’t been obliterated yet. He watched the mana accumulate, swirling into a condensed point before releasing in a blast that hurtled toward him.

  The spell sizzled out before it even crossed the crack’s threshold, the energy unravelling and fading into the air.

  Safe now, he placed his hand on the cold metal of the Vault’s door, fingers splaying over the intricate glyphs etched into its surface. The mana beneath his palm shivered, reacting to his touch, a faint glow radiating from the runes.

  There was a pause.

  Then the door shuddered, the enchantments rippling outward in concentric waves, shimmering like oil on water. The ancient wards trembled, their intricate network of protections bending—then breaking. The Vault groaned, a sound like old bones cracking, before the iron door swung open with a creak that echoed through the empty street.

  Lowe stepped over the threshold, his silhouette swallowed by the darkness beyond.

  The door slammed shut behind him, the echo of its closing ringing through the street.

  And somewhere deep inside the Vault, something started laughing.